Things that don’t mix

My mother and a garden hose (don’t get in range, you’ll get wet, very wet)

Republicans and common sense

Mental health issues and guns

It’s the last item that I’m going to write about today.

Several weeks ago I wrote in a post or comment about a young man with whom my wife has conversations. He works at a store my wife frequents and he started telling my wife about his mental health issues. He experiences depression and he has had, and may still be receiving, mental health care for his depression. He’s about 24 years old and he lives with his parents.

Well, he did what many people do today—he requested and received permission from the county sheriff to purchase a gun. I don’t know how well they check backgrounds, but if they did and found out about his psychological problems, why did he get the OK to buy a gun? My wife has told him he didn’t need a gun, and that having one just doesn’t make sense. He bought one anyway.

Then he told my wife he’d applied for a concealed carry permit. Unless the permit process has changed, he needed to get written statements from about three people and each one of those people would have to attest that he’s of good character and not likely to shoot up the neighborhood and/or the neighbors.

I believed that the sheriff checks a person’s background and perhaps more thoroughly for that concealed carry permit. So, unless records are blocked, the sheriff would have found out about his mental health problems and that should have been enough to deny the permit. Well, it didn’t, he told my wife the other day that he now has a permit to carry a concealed weapon.

Now we have another person with mental health issues who can carry a concealed and loaded gun where it’s allowed. I will never believe that this is a good idea. He is an incident waiting to happen and, if it does, it won’t be pretty.
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